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Adding FrameMaker’s book file feature to Microsoft Word
Posted in: Book writing software by Edwin on January 14, 2010
FrameMaker vs Word
I recently started a ‘What are the missing features in Word as a technical writing software?‘ discussion in the ‘Technical Writer Forum‘ linkedin group, surprisingly, many respondents mentioned Adobe FrameMaker which I don’t know about before, and that made me wanted to learn more about it, so I started to read the online help manual of that technical writing software, one of my findings that interests me is that the concept of ‘writing projects in Writing Outliner Word addin’ is exactly the same as the ‘book files’ concept in FrameMaker.
A writing project in Writing Outliner is similar to a book file in Framemaker
In FrameMaker, a book file contains multiple documents that make up books, so you can have a file for the cover, for the front matter, for each chapter, for the appendices, for the index and for the glossary, a book can be organized into a hierarchical structure using folders, and finally you can merge the documents into one for publishing. The ‘book files’ concept in FrameMaker making managing a long, complex document much more manageable, and this is exactly the idea behind the Writing Outliner Word addin! See this screenshot of Writing Outliner Word addin below, on the left it’s the project manager and it’s similar to the book window in FrameMaker:
I did not use FrameMaker before, and am now reading their online help, but I assume in FrameMaker you can find and replace strings through all files in a book file, and this is what you can do with Writing Outliner Word addin.
Make Microsoft Word more stable!
I thin it’ll make Microsoft Word more stable by introducing the ‘writing project’ into it, because Microsoft Word is known for it’s unstability when handling long documents, but with Writing Outliner for Word each chapter, sections and sections of your large documents are written in much smaller and separated files.
New Screenshots of Writing Outliner Word addin
Posted in: Book writing software by Edwin on December 31, 2009
Well, I’m moving into a new home this week and the development of Writing Outliner is a little behind the schedule, so I thought I should postpone posting the new Screenshots of Writing Outliner Add-in for Microsoft Word™, but as you can see in the Comments section of my previous post MuppetGate has been keen on this software project, so I think I’d keep my promise 😉 So I post two new quick screenshots of Writing Outliner Word addin here, more details will come next month or so.
Screenshot 1
Just created a new writing project in Microsoft Word™ 2003 with Writing Outliner installed.
I’m working really hard for this Word addin for writers
Posted in: Book writing software, Word addin by Edwin on November 13, 2009
Well, I haven’t been adding new blog posts recently, but I’m working really hard on my Writing Outliner Word addin development these days, and I’ll be shortly posting new screenshots which will show how in the current stage this Word addin for writer will look like when working on a writing project 😉
And I’d like to thank you all guys who have signed up for the newsletter, and those who have emailed me your suggestions and comments, you are actually giving me more motivation (which I have a lot already, but you know, the more, the better ;), and you are enriching my ‘field knowledge’ during our communication which will help the Word addin developer a lot.
Background (for new visitors):
Writing Outliner is an addin for Word which is aiming at turning Microsoft Word™ (all versions of it, from Word 2000 to 2007 and the upcoming 2010) into an all-in-one book-length document writing tool, it allows you managing you whole writing projects easily, to view and search research files right inside Word, in one place with your drafts, to outline long documents and write in pieces, and so on, you can check the details on home page of Writing Outliner Word addin.
People want Scrivener for Windows
Posted in: Book writing software by Edwin on October 22, 2009
Background: What’s Scrivener?
Scrivener is a Mac writing software developed by keith. Scrivener is an all-in-one book writing software that helps you to manage your writing projects, outline your book-length documents, view and search research files, take notes and so on.
Note, I am mentioning Scrivener here is to tell how Writing Outliner Word addin is going to look like, I have nothing to do with Scrivener which is owned by Keith.
People want ‘Scrivener for Windows’
It seems that there are a lot of people who use PC is wanting a Scrivener-like writing software for Windows, for example, take a look at the outliner software forum, Scrivener has been mentioned many times here and there.
The Goal of Writing Outliner Word addin is a versatile writing software like Scrivener, and more
I’m now developing Writing Outliner Word addin which will turn Microsoft Word™ onto an all-in-one writing software, Like Scrivener, you’ll be able to manage your drafts and research materials in one place, on a task pane inside Word, you’ll be able to drag-and-drop to organize your drafts and research files, full-text search through your Word documents, view PDF’s, images, webapges, etc, in one place…
Stay turned !
A great article about writing a book in Word
Posted in: Word by Edwin on October 20, 2009
For people who want to write a book, be it a novel or a technical manual, this article contains very helpful information, including using styles to simplify the format tasks, navigating your book, generating table of contents, and so on.
On the other hand, this informative tutorial shows the weaknesses of Word as a book writing software, and those weaknesses are exactly what Writing Outliner Word addin is trying to solve. For example, that article tells you how to navigate your long document, how to generate the table of contents, how to format the section names and chapter names of your book, how to edit each part as a separated file and combine them at the end, and so on, you’ll find these tasks are still involves quite a few hassles, and the good news is, these tasks will be extremely easy with Writing Outliner Word addin, I promise 😉
Writing Outliner Word addin intro 1 – the Welcome pane
Posted in: Book writing software by Edwin on October 18, 2009
Background: Writing Outliner is a Microsoft Word addin that is intended to make writing book-length documents in Word easier, by adding various functions (such as edit multiple documents in the same time, view and search research materials/notes, etc) to Word. It’s currently under development. You can sign up for the newsletter to get informed or become a beta tester.
Start from now, as the development goes I will post some screenshots of Writing Outliner Word addin, to show how it makes writing easier in Word.
The Welcome pane of Writing Outliner Word addin
Once Writing Outliner addin is installed, you will see the Welcome pane showing on the left in Word’s main window, as you can see the above screen shot, Writing Outliner is seamlessly integrated into Word.
Like Word’s built-in ‘Getting Started’ task pane, the Welcome pane of Writing Outliner addin helps you to get your writing projects started easily.
On the top you can click ‘Create A Blank Project‘ to create a blank writing project, or click ‘Import Files From A Folder‘ to quickly create a writing project by using your existing documents, researches and notes, this is extremely useful because you must have already a lot of existing documents written in Word or other writing programs, or you can just use this function to import all your documents froom ‘My Documents’ just to utilize the full text search feature of Writing Outliner addin.
In the middle the Welcome pane lists all your existing writing projects for your fast and easy access, you can even instantly filter the project list by name, what you need to do is to input a string in the search box.
On the bottom of the Welcome pane, some links are provided for sending us questions and feedbacks easier.
Writing Outliner Addin is your ultimate writing tool for Word
From the screenshot above you can see that Writing Outliner addin is not only good for writing book-length documents, but is also good for all kinds of writings including, but not limited to columns, thesis, technical manuals, project documents, software development documents, diaries, and so on.
Keep an eye on my blog and I’ll post new Screenshots from time to time 😉
What novel writing software do you use?
Posted in: Novel Writing Software by Edwin on October 12, 2009
The Writing Outliner Word™ addin is intended to be a general book writing software for writing various kinds of books, these should include technical book/manual, novel, non-fiction, and so on, so I wonder what novel writing software are you using currently and what problems are you facing in using that software?
The mind map of Writing Outliner’s positioning
Posted in: Uncategorized by Edwin on September 25, 2009
A picture worths one thousand words.
Check the following mind map (click to enlarge) and you will have an overview of what Writing Outliner is all about and what makes it different from the other similar writing software.
PS. The mind map is made with mind mapping software MindVisualizer.
Turn Microsoft Word™ into a powerful outliner software
Posted in: Book writing software by Edwin on
In our under-development project – Writing Outliner, the outliner is one of the main parts of the writing software, it turns Microsoft Word™ into a true outliner software.
So what is a outliner
Well, the word outliner in the Windows world is not used as widely as it’s in the Mac world, but you must be familiar with the similar words: folders, tree or hierarchy, right? The following are some examples of using a outline to manage information:
- Microsoft Office Outlook uses folders to organize emails into groups.
- Windows Explorer uses folders to manage all your files in your computer.
- Scrivener, the famous book writing software for Mac uses a outliner to manage all documents in a book writing project.
- Evernote, the famous note taking software uses hierarchical treeview to manage the notes it clipped.
Why outliners are so useful?
With a hierarchical outline view, you can view and manage the information at a larger scale without going into the details, this make it easier to get an overview and take control of the structure of a large amount of information.
Why Microsoft Word™ needs a outliner?
Let’s take writing a book as an example, with an outline view you can view and manage the book chapter by chapter, if you have ever written a book with Microsoft Word™ without the help of other software you should know the pain when navigating such a long document to find something for amendment.
How Writing Outliner™ differs from other outliner softwares?
- Writing Outliner is specifically designed for writers, outlining is only one of the main features of it, and there are other many features such as full text search, index cards, tagging, writing-task-related document properties, second viewer for viewing research materials, taking notes, and so on, for making the writing process smoother and easier.
- It’s seamlessly integrated into Microsoft Word™, so you can make good use of the industry leading word processor.
Note: Writing Outliner is currently under development and it’ll be come a versatile writing software for writers, if you are interested you please sign up our newsletter so that you can get informed when it’s ready (for beta testing or purchasing).
Why Writing Outliner (Book writing software) is developed as a Word addin?
Posted in: Word by Edwin on September 21, 2009
What is a Word™ addin?
Microsoft knows although Word™ is a very powerful word processor it cannot cover all requirements of all users, for example, writers need functionalities to allow them to manage their long writings or a series of documents, to easily manage and view their research materials, to take notes, to brainstorm, to outline their ideas, and so on.
So Microsoft provides a programming interface for 3rd party software vendors to add functionalities to Microsoft Word™ by developing the so called Word addins (some people call them addons). In other words, Word add-ins are software modules developed to work with and enhance Microsoft Word™ to accomplish some particular tasks.
Why Writing Outliner is developed as a Word addin?
Good question!
Microsoft Word™ is the leading software product in the Word processing industry, and most publishers accepts only book drafts in Word document format. If Writing Outliner is developed as a standalone writing software like other novel or story writing software, the writers will have to export their drafts and load in Microsoft Word™ to do some further formatting works, what a pain!
With Writing Outliner being developed as a Word add-in authors get all their writing software tools in one place, the whole writing process from researching, outlining, note taking, transcribing, editing, to final formating, is streamlined!
Keep up with our development!
Writing Outliner is under development curently, you can sign up as a beta tester here.